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Class3KillStorm
Feb 17, 2011



Franchescanado posted:

11. Myths & Legends

Watch a horror film heavily featuring mythical creatures (killer mermaids, killer minotaur, killer unicorn, etc.)


#18. Wendigo (Shudder)

A young family spending the weekend upstate strikes and kills a deer on the road. The father gets into a confrontation with the hunters, nearly coming to blows. Afterwards, strange things begin happening at the house, and their young son comes to believe it may be the influence of a Wendigo.

I'm torn on this one, in terms of rating this as the movie it could be vs. the movie that it is. On the one hand, this is something of a thematic gem, a sort of child's eye view of Straw Dogs, where the young protagonist is absorbing all of his father's neuroses and masculine shortcomings and the potential violent conflicts and not having the capacity to form a true understanding of any of it. So everything gets filtered through his imagination and the wendigo myth and you can never be quite sure what in the back half is potentially real or not. It's really interesting, and for long stretches feels more like one of those "families in conflict trapped in a single location" dramas than a true horror or thriller movie; I love the scene of the father and son, sitting side by side on an old sled in the middle of the woods, the dad talking about the concepts of grief and mourning and the son really not getting it all. (The actors are mostly all good, especially Patricia Clarkson and Jake Weber as the parents, but Erik Per Sullivan - still in the super-young looking "Malcolm in the Middle" phase - is kinda weak as the child lead.)

But then, on the other hand, when it comes time for the movie to be a horror-thriller it doesn't really work. The idea of a potential crazy redneck stalking them through the woods around their house over imagined slights should be tense and scary, but they're spaced out enough that it doesn't really ever come across that way. There are scenes where the son sees the wendigo chasing after him, but it is presented on screen as a bad CGI avalanche and some doofy looking EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL trees, with a bunch of tree limbs around the camera POV subbing in as wendigo hands, which only makes the idea of an evil tree monster running after you going "I'ma getcha! I'ma GETcha!" even goofier somehow[spoiler]. Better is a scene where the son sees [spoiler]a giant humanoid deer-man skeleton standing over his dad after he gets shot, but that only gets a few seconds of screen time and then is never referenced again. If there is a wendigo here, it is inconsistently shown every time it appears, so it plays into the myth of the wendigo being a shape shifter but never does make it seem like a coherent threat.

(Also, the final form for the wendigo is basically a deluxe Spirit Halloween werewolf body suit with a deer head, with sped up shots to try and make it look less ridiculous and only succeeding in making it look worse. But I can't be the only one disappointed that it didn't end up looking (and sounding) like the old Marvel comics villain, right?)



Anyway, I get that the wanted to play with the myth of a wendigo as more of a metaphor than anything here, but it seems improperly applied: Wikipedia says that a wendigo is a metaphorical creature of greed and consumption, but everything treated in this film are metaphors of self-negation and self-deprecation and the violent conflicts that arise out of wounded male egos, so the wendigo myth doesn't really feel like it applies. Maybe you could say it does for the scene where Otis the hunter kills the sheriff and tries to flee town, or the final shots of the son watching Otis being brought into the hospital, clutching the little wendigo totem so tight his hand bleeds, like now he's the wendigo because his anger summoned a monster to hurt Otis in revenge, but all of that feels like a stretch. Again, I think they're trying to play with all of this thematically and metaphorically, which is admirable, but its misapplied here and there and keeps the whole thing from ever gelling as well as I'd like. It feels nominally like a horror film, nominally a thriller, nominally a movie about a wendigo that may or may not exist. So this ends up being a movie I can only nominally recommend.

:ghost::ghost:/5

P.S. The presentation of this thing on Shudder suuuuuucks. I get that this was probably only sourcable from a DVD master, so the video quality being meh is somewhat understandable and something I can deal with; it is ugly to look at in any dark scenes, though. The big issue is that the sound mix is all jacked up: dialogue is far too soft and muddled, the sound effects all have this weird doubling-effect on them so every step or creak or gunshot sounds warped and overloud, and the music ends up drowning all of that out anyway. I eventually adapted to it, but I had to do so by fighting with the audio settings every few minutes.

Watched so far: The Curse of the Cat People, Freaky, Vampires vs the Bronx, Rawhead Rex, Tarantula, In Search of Darkness, Ginger Snaps (rewatch), In Search of Darkness Part II (FC #10), Mother's Day (2010) (FC #7), Scream, Queen! (FC #9), House of Wax (1953) (FC #2), Vampire in Venice (FC #8), Possessor, Mandy, various shorts (FC #1), Saw (rewatch) (FC #6), Southbound (FC #12), Wendigo (FC #11)

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M_Sinistrari
Sep 5, 2008

Do you like scary movies?



Jedit posted:

I just want them to make a Michael Gallatin movie. For those not familiar with the books: he's James Bond in World War 2, except instead of having gadgets he's a werewolf.

And I would be there opening day to watch it.

Franchescanado posted:

6. Playing With Power


18) Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings - Prime - 1994

I didn't expect this challenge to be so challenging.

I thought through every horror video game and I'd pretty much written a review about the movie they were based on. Blair Witch..yep, Texas Chainsaw Massacre...yeah, Halloween...yep...the list went on until I found this. Unless another movie comes out and has a video game tie in, I've seen them all.

On its own, Pumpkinhead II's okay, just not as good as the original. Storyline's a basic Sins of the Fathers with both fathers and kids being assholes. Andrew Robinson is, of course excellent in this.

The game came out around the same time as the movie and is kinda DOOM-esque. Here's a Let's Play of sorts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSvXbmVcEOY

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Witchboard: Fran Challenge: Dead and Buried

Well, R.I.P. Tawny Kitaen and all that, but this movie was....not great. On paper it sounds like it should be some good old-fashioned creepy fun but in execution it's a boring slog that seemed endless despite only being about 100 minutes. I recommend figuring out another option for this challenge if you can, but that was the issue, there weren't any prominent horror actors who passed away since October. Which is great, because it seemed like we lost a bunch of people last year, but for this challenge it was pretty limiting.

Anyway there's no denying that Tawny Kitaen has some rad hair in this movie, so there's that.



1. The Leopard Man 2. The Curse of Frankenstein 3. The Old Dark House(Fran Challenge: Sometimes They Come Back) 4. The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb 5. Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 6. Mother's Day(Fran Challenge: Mother's Day) 7. Madman(Fran Challenge: Camp Blood) 8. The Legend of Boggy Creek(Fran Challenge: Myths & Legends) 9. Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Tom Savini(Fran Challenge: Behind the Mask) 10. Nightbreed(Fran Challenge: Playing with Power) 11. Fear(s) of the Dark(Fran Challenge: Cavalcade of Creepiness) 12. Witchboard(Fran Challenge: Dead and Buried)

twernt
Mar 11, 2003

Whoa whoa wait, time out.
:spooky: Fran Challenge 12. Cavalcade of Creepiness



Black Sabbath (1963)
Directed by Mario Bava
Watched on Shudder

The Telephone



In the first story, which has a very urban legend feel to it, a woman is harassed by a stranger who keeps calling her on the telephone. As the stranger calls over and over, becoming increasingly threatening, the tension and paranoia escalate. There are a couple of nice twists along the way. The Telephone works well as a short, with its limited sets and small cast.

:ghost::ghost::ghost:1/2

The Wurdulak



The second story, The Wurdulak, is somewhat more ambitious. Here, a family in a remote farmhouse are terrorized by a creature called a wurdulak, which is a kind of Slavic vampire. A visiting nobleman makes the mistake of getting involved because he has the hots for the farmer’s daughter. It’s a much more straightforward monster story than The Telephone but also much spookier and actually quite a bit of fun.

:ghost::ghost::ghost::ghost:

The Drop of Water



In The Drop of Water, the third and final story, a nurse steals a ring from a recently deceased countess and there are spooky consequences. The lighting and atmosphere in this one is just as good as in The Wurdulak, though all of the scenes are shot inside. There are definitely some decent scares as the nurse becomes increasingly convinced that she’s being haunted by the ring’s former owner and/or her grip on reality starts to unravel.

:ghost::ghost::ghost:1/2



Time Travel Challenge: 31/31
1. Jigoku (1960), 2. The Curse of the Doll People (1961), 3. The Burning Court (1962), 4. X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), 5. The Long Hair of Death (1964), 6. Planet of the Vampires (1965), 7. Daimajin (1966), 8. Viy (1967), 9. A Quiet Place in the Country (1968), 10. The Cremator (1969), 11. Equinox (1970), 12. Lake of Dracula (1971), 13. The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972), 14. The Crazies (1973), 15. Deathdream aka Dead of Night (1974), 16. Race with the Devil (1975), 17. The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976), 18. The Incredible Melting Man (1977), 19. The Grapes of Death (1978), 20. Tourist Trap (1979), 21. The Changeling (1980), 22. My Bloody Valentine (1981), 23. Human Lanterns (1982), 24. Christine (1983), 25. Night of the Comet (1984), 26. Demons (1985), 27. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), 28. Wolf’s Hole (1987), 29. The Vanishing (1988), 30. Santa Sangre (1989), 31. Bride of Re-Animator (1990)

Bracketology: 10/?
1. Vampires vs. the Bronx, 2. The Roost, 3. Varan, 4. On the Silver Globe, 5. The Phantom of the Opera, 6. Mark of the Vampire, 7. Tigers Are Not Afraid, 8. Sightseers, 9. The House That Jack Built, 10. The Wild Boys

Fran Challenges: 12/13
1. Un Chien Andalou / The Big Shave / Kitchen Sink / Foxes / Portal to Hell!!!, 2. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 3. The Burning, 4. Dead Ringers, 5. Belzebuth, 6. Fright Night, 7. The Brood, 8. Village of the Damned, 9. Cat People, 10. Birth of the Living Dead, 11. The Lure, 12. Black Sabbath

twernt fucked around with this message at 19:02 on May 19, 2021

E.G.G.S.
Apr 15, 2006

19. Humongous (1982)
As one does I raced to check the imdb trivia section and came across this gem
Director Paul Lynch was inspired to make this film after he heard a kid use the word "humongous."

100% certain it was followed by - waste of time.

A bunch of super horny teens crash their boat into buzzkill island and a whole bunch of who cares happens. It's too dull to be memorable outside of spooky VHS horror aisle browsing memories.

:ghost::ghost:.5/5

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

21. The Hunger Fran Challenge 9. Scream, Queen!



Susan Sarandon and David Bowie star in this post modern vampire tale. I picked this one because its been so long since I saw it it was like watching it new again. This is also Tony Scott's first film. It shows all his trademarks are in this with lots of quick cuts , moody lighting. This is a great 60 minute film and then it kind of unfortunately does fall apart in the last half of the film , but that first half is incredible.Anyway I really enjoyed this movie and its probably one of the best "modern" vampire tales. Even though it doesn't really stick the ending its still a good movie.

I guess I should say a bit more but The whole idea of the vampirism being a invading blood stream infecting you is kind of super on point for a movie made during the 80s when AIDS crisis was in full swing. I mean the whole movie is interesting when taken in this light also thecomplete degradation of David Bowie's character in a short while harkens to how quickly AIDS could kill sapping the literal life out of people. Anyway I thought it was particularly interesting take on a vampire story although the ending does not make sense at all and i can understand why actors like Susan Surandon hated it

Hollismason fucked around with this message at 21:57 on May 19, 2021

The Berzerker
Feb 24, 2006

treat me like a dog



29. The Wild Boys (Bertrand Mandico, 2017)
:spooky: Fran Challenge 9: Scream, Queen! :spooky:
I watched this for the Bracketology Tournament thread. In this film, a group of boys, played by women, who raped their teacher, are sent off with a sea captain who promises to return them more docile and civilized. He takes them to an island where they begin to turn into women. Feels like there's a message here about how masculinity is a prison, or if I was less generous something about how men are animals and women are easier to control, but it's complex and I don't feel fully equipped to write about the ways this examines gender. But: I would certainly suggest anyone interested read Deb's post in the Bracketology thread about this, because it's tremendous work. At times, this feels like different movies stitched together because of the way it shifts from B&W to color and other changes, it made the whole thing a bit disorienting, dreamlike and unsettling in a very pleasant way. Definitely want to revisit this one, maybe I will watch it again in October.

:ghost: 4/5

Challenge Count: 29/31
Fran Challenges: 1 (Various) 2 (Suspiria 2018) 3 (Cheerleader Camp) 4 5 (Tigers Are Not Afraid) 6 (Resident Evil: The Final Chapter) 7 (Goodnight Mommy) 8 (The Clown at Midnight) 9 (The Wild Boys) 10 (Video Nasties) 11 12 (Tales of Halloween) 13 (April Fool's Day)
TSZDT Challenge: 100/100
Indiewire Challenge: 47/50 (Remaining: Pulse, Hangover Square, I Saw the Devil

twernt
Mar 11, 2003

Whoa whoa wait, time out.
:spooky: Fran Challenge 13. Horrible Holidays



My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)
Directed by Patrick Lussier
Watched on HBO Max

My Bloody Valentine 3D is a loose remake of the original My Bloody Valentine from 1981. The movie kicks things off with Harry Warden, the first movie’s boogieman, waking up from a coma and using mining tools to kill quite a few young folks at a party. The cops show up to dispatch him, there’s a mine collapse, and we fast forward ten years.



Some of the names are familiar. For example, we still have Axel and Tom (T.J.) in a love triangle. The details are different, but most of them aren’t consequential. It does matter than Tom left town and is back after ten years, looking to sell the family mine. This makes him very popular with the locals.



There’s more than enough blood and guts for folks who like that sort of thing. I don’t know that anyone would argue that My Bloody Valentine 3D is innovative nor novel. There are plenty of twists and surprise kills to keep things interesting. I bet this was a blast to see in 3D in an actual theater.



I’d say it’s definitely worth watching even if it’s not necessarily worth seeking out on its own.

:ghost::ghost::ghost:


Time Travel Challenge: 31/31
1. Jigoku (1960), 2. The Curse of the Doll People (1961), 3. The Burning Court (1962), 4. X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), 5. The Long Hair of Death (1964), 6. Planet of the Vampires (1965), 7. Daimajin (1966), 8. Viy (1967), 9. A Quiet Place in the Country (1968), 10. The Cremator (1969), 11. Equinox (1970), 12. Lake of Dracula (1971), 13. The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972), 14. The Crazies (1973), 15. Deathdream aka Dead of Night (1974), 16. Race with the Devil (1975), 17. The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976), 18. The Incredible Melting Man (1977), 19. The Grapes of Death (1978), 20. Tourist Trap (1979), 21. The Changeling (1980), 22. My Bloody Valentine (1981), 23. Human Lanterns (1982), 24. Christine (1983), 25. Night of the Comet (1984), 26. Demons (1985), 27. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), 28. Wolf’s Hole (1987), 29. The Vanishing (1988), 30. Santa Sangre (1989), 31. Bride of Re-Animator (1990)

Bracketology: 10/?
1. Vampires vs. the Bronx, 2. The Roost, 3. Varan, 4. On the Silver Globe, 5. The Phantom of the Opera, 6. Mark of the Vampire, 7. Tigers Are Not Afraid, 8. Sightseers, 9. The House That Jack Built, 10. The Wild Boys

Fran Challenges: 13/13
1. Un Chien Andalou / The Big Shave / Kitchen Sink / Foxes / Portal to Hell!!!, 2. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 3. The Burning, 4. Dead Ringers, 5. Belzebuth, 6. Fright Night, 7. The Brood, 8. Village of the Damned, 9. Cat People, 10. Birth of the Living Dead, 11. The Lure, 12. Black Sabbath, 13. My Bloody Valentine 3D

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

What are some movie suggestions for the Dead and Buried challenge. I find it a hard time to come up with movies because I don't really pay to much attention to obituaries of famous people/ people in the industry.

twernt
Mar 11, 2003

Whoa whoa wait, time out.

Hollismason posted:

What are some movie suggestions for the Dead and Buried challenge. I find it a hard time to come up with movies because I don't really pay to much attention to obituaries of famous people/ people in the industry.

Daria Nicolodi (who passed away last November) was in a bunch of Argento movies: https://letterboxd.com/actor/daria-nicolodi/genre/horror/

I went with Barbara Shelley because I wanted to see Village of the Damned anyway. https://letterboxd.com/actor/barbara-shelley/genre/horror/

Five Eyes
Oct 26, 2017
Fran Challenge 1.) Short Cuts

I like short horror a lot! It feels like a lot of longer horror media consists of one or two oogy scenes or creepy visuals which resonate with the creator, and then the project is about finding a skeleton to house the core elements. A good short contains the one strong image or idea without the surrounding scaffolding, which is a great way to try out a concept before expanding it, or to deliver on an idea which lacks the elements which would merit a longer treatment.

The Quiet (Youtube, 21m)
Turned out to be a good choice when testing out a new speaker configuration for my laptop. This was fine, but would have punched harder with some trimming.

My House Walkthrough (Youtube, 12m)
When discussing this with my partner, I compared it to "a paragraph without punctuation." Very fun. The monotony and lack of obvious beats encourages a viewer's attentiveness - a good gimmick which makes use of the brevity of a short film.

Apartment 41 (Youtube, 6m)
We are all haunted by the ghosts of our past deeds but also possibly by actual ghosts. Didn't really connect with me due to some weak dialogue and iffy choices on sound issues.

The Nurse (Youtube , 2m)
Apparently aiming for a "Conjuring" feel. Leaving aside whether that is an admirable goal to shoot for, I feel like it sticks the landing in one of the hallway shots but is otherwise unremarkable.

Miner's Mountain (Youtube , 17m)
Found this by the very scientific method of clicking a youtube rec on one of the other shorts. Feels more like a trailer or pitch than a complete concept (or an addition to the wider Larry Fessenden Cinematic Universe), but no complaints here.

POKOPOKOPIKOTAN (Youtube , 4m)
Same creator as My House Walkthrough, this is also in the vein of "creepy atmospheric experience". Excellent use of sound and color and viscosity.

Fran Challenge 2.) Sometimes they Come Back
PET SEMATARY (2019) (Watched on Amazon via Prime)


What horrors lurk in the dark and uncharted corners of rural Maine?

The titular sematary is suitably eerie and unearthly, seemingly hundreds of miles from anything, and I like the masked procession at the start.

The storytelling here isn't going to surprise anyone, but it's competent, and the spooky vignettes and character flashbacks keep things on point: This is a story about how people deal with death, in various forms.

I don't remember the '89 outing very well, so my ability to compare the two is limited. Were the dream sequences and incidental hauntings in that one?

So what happened to your dog, Jud?

Fran Challenge 3.) Camp BLOOD
Madman (Watched on Amazon via IMDBTv)


A delightfully standard spooky-story opening, already a mainstay by 1982, and to be thoroughly lampooned in the years to come.

Madman runs mostly by the numbers - it'd make good background noise with company, but isn't of much interest to just sit and watch, considering how crowded the field is.

One thing stood out, though - what in the absolute heck is going on with the weirdo fireplace scene? Why are these people hanging out in a tesselated person pile? The behavior of these counselors is far more unsettling and alien than the titular madman.

One by one, you'll start to fall. Before night's over, I'll get you all.

Watched: 1.) Various Shorts [FC1: Short Cuts] 2.) Pet Sematary (2019) [FC2: Sometimes they Come Back], 3.) Madman [FC3: Camp BLOOD]

married but discreet
May 7, 2005


Taco Defender
7. Dario Argento’s Phantom of the Opera



Well this just sucked, here’s a youtube screenshot, gently caress you

8. Bliss



High energy Abel Ferrara homage which, in my opinion, overdoes it a bit with the aesthetic, and I think is also a bit too horny for the protagonist. And ultimately it’s quite shallow too, but not in the Abel Ferrara way where it’s shallow because there is just so much right on the surface, there’s just not much going on overall. Enjoy the pretty colours and the carnage, and forget about it again. I sort of wanted more, I guess?

9. Horrors of Malformed Men



Well poo poo. I feel like Milhouse complaining when they’re finally going to be at the fireworks factory. But that’s not really a good comparison because the first 75% is an intriguing, vaguely lovecraftian mystery story with plenty of twists and turns to keep your attention. But then they unexpectedly arrive at the metaphorical fireworks factory and it loving slaps. I don’t really want to give away too much because it’s way funnier that way, but this has definitely inspired a couple Takeshi Miike and Tom Six movies. Highly, highly recommended. Only downside, it looks like a real snake is killed during the movie.

10. Sightseers



A dark British comedy by Ben Wheatly, whose movies I generally can’t really connect to. Except High Rise, which is great. This one I’d call his least ambitious movie I’ve seen so far, it feels very Unwheatleyesque but also not really special as a result. Solid acting, some good laughs, I think it succeeds at what it’s trying to do. Would use as a tourism ad for the UK.


Previously Watched:
1. Child's Play 2, 2. Varan, 3. The Roost, 4. D@bbe, 5. Mark of the Vampire, 6. Queen of Black Magic (1981)

Spatulater bro!
Aug 19, 2003

Punch! Punch! Punch!

:spooky: Fran Challenge #4 - Movie of the Month :spooky:

#22

Cure
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997



People are getting murdered and a pattern is emerging. All of the victims have an X carved into their neck, and the perpetrator is always found nearby with absolutely no clue why he killed the person. A detective with a mentally ill wife is leading the investigation. That's all you should know about the plot going in.

My new nickname for Kiyoshi Kurosawa is "The Master of Dread". Much like his film Pulse, Cure methodically, hypnotically creeps its way into your psyche. By the last act my heart was in my throat and every little movement within the frame made me uneasy. A shot of a drawing on a piece of paper put my stomach in a knot. The film's tone is nightmarish in the most literal sense. There's a fragmentation to some scenes that adds disorientation to the already psychologically-twisty narrative. But this isn't some cerebral puzzle film. There's so much more going on here. It's an exposé on our dark, hidden desires. The things we fear the most might actually be the things we want the most. The film brilliantly mixes atmospheric dread with existential dread. I don't know if I want to scream or cry.

And god drat, that last shot. Yeah this movie is going to stay with me for a while.

5/5




Films watched: 1. Witchfinder General (1968), 2. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), 3. The Devil Rides Out (1968), 4. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), 5. Who Can Kill a Child? (1976), 6. The Raven (1935), 7. A Bucket of Blood (1959), 8. The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), 9. Hunter Hunter (2020), 10. Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971), 11. Prince of Darkness (1987), 12. What We Do in the Shadows (2014), 13. The Devil's Advocate, 14. Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), 15. Madman (1981), 16. The House That Dripped Blood (1971), 17. The Evil Dead (1981), 18. Alligator (1980), 19. The Terror Within II (1991), 20. Homicidal (1961), 21. El Vampiro (1957), 22. Cure (1997)

10/13 Fran Challenges completed: 2. Sometimes They Come Back, 3. Camp BLOOD, 4. Movie of the Month, 5. Cinco, 7. Mother's Day, 8. Dead & Buried, 9. Scream, Queen!, 10. Behind the Mask, 11. Myths & Legends, 12. Cavalcade of Creepiness

Opopanax
Aug 8, 2007

I HEX YE!!!


:spooky: Challenge 11: Myths and Legends

8: The Hallow




I remember seeing the trailer for this back when it was first coming out and thought it looked good, but I've never seen it running or streaming anywhere any time I've looked. Had it on my list already and The Hallow are meant to be fairies, so figured I'd apply it here.

Really glad I got around to it, this was great. CGI is a little spotty but that's made up for with some really good creature effects and prosthetics. The story gets a bit confusing if you try to dig too deep into it as they kind of try and give the Hallow a scientific origin, but they don't really spell out what their deal is and if there's meant to still be a mythical side to it. They're cordycep creatures but it's unclear if theyre just feral mushroom people or they control the cordycep, as it seems to have a mind of its own and the changeling stuff at the end is pretty advanced

Some beautiful shots of the Irish countryside, too

Count Thrashula
Jun 1, 2003

Peak Performance.

Buglord
22) The House That Jack Built (2018)


"Some people claim that the atrocities we commit in our fiction are those inner desires which we cannot commit in our controlled civilization; so they are expressed instead in our art. I don't agree. I believe Heaven and Hell are one in the same. The soul belongs to Heaven, and the body to Hell. The soul is reason, and the body is... all the dangerous things, for example, art and icons."

I pasted about 5 different quotes above before I settled on one. Wow. I, uh... I'm going to need a while to think about this. The message is heavy-handed. Sure. I'm actually surprised that I didn't catch on to the metaphorical overtone going on at the beginning of the movie, but it certainly paid off. This is definitely Lars Von Trier at his Von Trieriest, but I absolutely loved it. It was unsettling, it was well-acted, it was philosophical in some ways. I just.... loved it.
5/5

Total: 22
1. Crawl (2019) / 2. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) (FC1) / 3. Vampyr (1932) / 4. I Walked With A Zombie (1943) / 5. Kwaidan (1964) (FC12) / 6. Vampyres (1975) (FC9) / 7. The Howling (1981) / 8. Torso (1973) / 9. Frankenhooker (1990) / 10. Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore (2010) (FC10) / 11. Them (Ils) (2006) / 12. Nina Forever (2015) / 13. Aliens (1986) / 14. The Cremator (1969) (FC4) / 15. Saw IV (2007) / 16. Dark Skies (2013) / 17. The McPherson Tape (1989) / 18. Saw (2004) (FC6) / 19. Mother's Day (1980) (FC7) / 20. The Lure (2015) (FC11) / 21. Belzebuth (2017) (FC5) / 22. The House That Jack Built (2018)
Fran Challenges Remaining -- 2, 3, 8, 13

M_Sinistrari
Sep 5, 2008

Do you like scary movies?



Franchescanado posted:

7. Mother's Day

19) Mom and Dad - Prime - 2017

When looking for a poster image for this one, I came across plenty of commentary praising this as a hysterical black comedy and a great satire of suburbia. I'm wondering if we all sat through the same film.

Premise here is parents start following through with urges to kill their children. The kills are off screen and I did have to leave the room for a bit when the new mother tries to kill her newborn. There's also a fair amount of lamenting over how lives changed in becoming adults.

I don't know if it's a me thing, a my generation thing or what, but there was the expectation that you will change with adulthood, and we were all looking forward to that independence. When I was 16, I moved into my parents furnished basement as an apartment training wheels thing so when I did eventually move to my own place, I was ready. When I had my kids, I knew I would be sacrificing aspects of my life until they grew and moved on with their lives. Looking back on my younger days, yeah, there were fun times but also sucky times as well.

With Kendall and Brent, I had the feeling they were more hung up on the nostalgia of being younger and carefree rather than also remembering the sucky parts even before the kill impulse started.

I will admit, I didn't expect when the grandparents showed up with the same kill impulse to kill the parents, and I did laugh at "Kendall's not even a real name!".

Cinematography-wise, there were odd jarring moments of hyperstyle with sped up filming and soundtrack. Once I saw the director of this was the same one who did the Crank films, it made sense. He was probably trying to convey the same high adrenaline sensation as the Crank films, but I don't think it works too well here.

Overall, this film really didn't do it for me, but it does have me thinking Hollismason is onto something with that mindful consumption idea.

STAC Goat
Mar 12, 2008

Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.


37 (41). BloodRayne (2005)
Directed by Uwe Boll, Written by Guinevere Turner, Based on BloodRayne
Watched on Amazon Prime, available on Tubi.


Fran Challenges 6/13

Franchescanado posted:

6. Playing With Power
Watch a horror film that has had a tie-in video game.

Did you know a dhampir is a half vampire? Like a kid of a vampire and a human. You know like Blade. I swear this film felt like it told you that like 10 times in the first act. Just dhampir this and dhampir that. Just one little “daywalker” intro could have sufficed but Rayne is kind of a weirdly passive character early one. Actually that’s not fair. She’s eating people and fighting random monsters. I guess its more than this FEELS like a video game movie and all the dialogue has all the natural flow of a video game’s exposition cut scenes. And the story is less interested in being a story as it is in just setting up the next level for Rayne to do more action stuff. And those action scenes are terrible. Like I’m not blaming Kristanna Loken for not being good at fighting with some weird rear end swords from a video game, but nothing’s doing her or this film any favors to hide it. Half the time people feel like they’re moving in slow motion. Half the time the scenes are cut in a way that make the scenes impossible to follow. Boll loves throwing in these flashbacks and visions in short doses that are so short that you can barely even make them out as anything. Like an hour in there’s this sequence of events that happen so quickly and in so many awkward cuts and short little scenes that I had to rewind to figure out what the gently caress happened. Like there’s either an entire act squeezed into 5 minutes or just one two scenes weirdly diced up into twenty. And there’s this sequence where Michelle Rodriguez jumps in the water and tells her friends to watch out and then seconds later Rayne jumps in at the same exact spot just feet behind her and those guys are gone and we never see them again.

And then there’s the awkwardly long sex scene between two characters with zero chemistry and no real courting but exists just to get the lead actresses boobs revealed.

And boy this cast. Michael Madsen and Michelle Rodriguez aren’t out there winning Oscars in other roles but they can do better than this and they clearly just know what they’re in right now and how much effort its worth. But then you’ve got an actual award winning thespian in the mix in Ben Kingsley and he seems almost pained as he tries to squeeze some respectability and nobility out of this job his agent probably got fired for booking for him. The best thing about the film is Billy Zane showing up with the exact amount of camp and self awareness this movie deserves and the worst thing is that he basically never shows up again! Billy Zane, maybe the smartest actor? At least the smartest on on this Eastern Europeon tax deduction set.

Just a really bad movie. Not fun enough to get past its trashiness. Not well made enough to really sincerely appreciate anything from it. The sort of film that drags good actors down to bad performances. A story that plods along awkwardly and has no impact at all. This Uwe Boll guy might be a bad director.


edit: Oh, I totally forgot. I went and got the old as gently caress game for this for the hell of it and the fun of trying out the game and the movie at the same time. I don't regret it because I definitely enjoyed the game more than the movie. Its super dated and I didn't get very deep in before my fever days wrecked me and I couldn't really focus on anything for awhile, but hey at least I played the video game before I saw the adaption of the video game. So at least I had some idea why Lokann had to struggle with those weird blades. I just wish I had the capabilities to record myself gaming so you could all enjoy the sight of me flailing about helplessly and dying by splashing in water too much.








38 (42). Big Driver (2014)
Directed by Mikael Salomon, Screenplay by Richard Christian Matheson, Based on 2010 novella by Stephen King
Watched on Youtube, available on Lifetime Movie Club


King Spring 9/13

”I’ve just sent myself to hell.”
“Point taken. But why not make sure the other guy gets there first?”


I had luck with the last obscure rear end King tv movie about driving stuff… I sure as hell wasn’t expecting a rape/revenge film I’d have to turn away from. But I guess it is a LIfetime movie.

Its not that uncommon for King to write about a writer as a form of introspection and I guess “pay me” self therapy. But I’m not sure how that works on a topic like this. The idea that Maria Bello’s character is a writer because she’s always got “voices in her head” playing out scenarios and offering up ideas and the writing keeps her sane sounds like a King thing. That the writer would try and use the skills and knowledge she’s picked up over the years writing stories of that nature sounds a bit like him as well. But the idea of this “voices in the head” thing also telling her that her fame will make a scandal of this and some will inevitably blame her or doubt her feels like maybe a stretch its not great for him to take. Don’t get me wrong, its obviously true. Women have to unfairly hide what’s happened to them because of the unfair and misogynistic treatment of them unquestionably as made very public and openly known years later with the MeToo movement. So King’s right there. And giving her the same kind of writer “super powers” he’d give a male writer is good. I dunno. I guess the idea of King writing a stand in for himself who is also a raped woman just has a disconnect with me. Obviously this isn’t as personal a story to King as something like The Shining or The Dark Half but it still feels like King with his heart in the right place of addressing this sad fact of our society’s treatment of women.

That is probably what sets this apart from other rape/revenge films. The bulk of the film is not spent on either the rape nor the revenge but rather Bello’s internal struggle with the “voices” about what happened, how it happened, and what she should do about it. To that end its an interesting directorial choice how to handle those voices. That often feels like a struggle of King adaptions. Since so much of his writing is often in first person narratives how do you convey that on film without the character just talking to themselves all film or a narration the whole time? Here she does basically talk to herself the whole time but the writer gimmick sets that up for stand ins like her having discussion with her navigating device on long rides or her favorite book character played by Olympia Dukakis sitting down with her like a catty grandma. So Bello works through the hows, whats, and whys with them which I do think keeps the whole thing moving well. Some seem to think it adds a lighthearted whimsical element to things that seems inappropriate but while there’s definitely some joke moments it didn’t really strike me that way at all. Its a rape victim working through her trauma, anger, and even misguided guilt for not seeing it coming and more justified guilt for the revenge she’s seeking, so it is all plenty dark and fitting with the content. Although King certainly does tend to have a sense of humor that can walk the line and some of the exchanges with her voices do have some moments. Although I don’t know if they belong to King or the adaption.

Interestingly the director Mikael Salomon is pretty accomplished in his own right. Not at all what I expected from the director of a Lifetime movie. Doing cinematography for a large array of films like and receiving Oscar nominations for it with <a href=https://boxd.it/26mK>The Abyss</a> and <a href=https://boxd.it/265Y>Backdraft</a> and has directed for Band of Brothers. He’s also no stranger to King adaptions as he directed the <a href=https://boxd.it/19SC>2004 Salem’s Lot miniseries</a> and King’s little seen <a href=https://boxd.it/HJC>2006 anthology miniseries Nightmares & Dreamscapes</a>. I dunno if doing King adaptions is a badge of honor exactly but it does tend to come in clusters with folks like Frank Darabont. Mike Flanagan, and Mick Garris so does seem like a sign of someone “getting” King. Which again, can sometimes be a good thing but also some of the best King adaptions do tend to come from the guys who show little regard for faithfulness or King’s “voice.”

But I’d say this is a decent one all considered. I like Bello, I like Dukakis (I guess this could count for the Dead and Buried challenge if I wasn’t trying to avoid double dipping), and Saloman obviously has talent. Plus solidly meaty supporting roles from Joan Jett and Ann Dowd. Its still a TV movie, and a Lifetime movie at that so its definitely not as polished, expensive, or maybe as violent or gory as the topic might often demand. Still, it made squeamish me uncomfortable enough to turn away from a genuinely long and brutal rape scene and the revenge part gets pretty brutal for tv. I mean, castration by gunpoint is pretty hardcore for my standards. But I’m not hardcore and don’t like rape/revenge films generally. The fact that I did kind of enjoy this is maybe a reinforcement of people who feel it lacks the punch of the sub genre or adds too much “whimsy”, but I guess that’s probably what made it work for me where most rape/revenge films turn me away. To me it dealt with the topic in a heavy and meaningful way without going as exploitative as the genre usually goes because of its forced limitations or King’s writing sensibilities.

I was surprised as hell when I realized this was a Stephen King rape/revenge film because that felt very un Stephen King. But its actually more a Stephen King story about rape/revenge than a rape/revenge story written by Stephen King. And maybe I like Stephen King more than I hate rape/revenge?



🌻🎈Spook-A-Doodle Half-Way-To-Halloween ’21: Return of the Fallen & King Spring🎈🌻
King Spring: 9/13🎈Return of the Fallen: 6/13👻Fran Challenges: 5/13🐺Svengoolie: 5/13
Watched - New (Total)
1. Riding the Bullet (2004); 2. Cat’s Eye (1985); - (3). Vampires vs. the Bronx (2020); - (4). The Thing (1982); 3 (5). Sleep Tight (2011); - (6). Dark Shadows (2012); 4 (7). The Wicker Man (1973); 5 (8). Varan (1958); 6 (9). The Roost (2005); 7 (10). The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007); 8 (11). The Leech Woman (1960); 9 (12). Sometimes They Come Back (1991); 10 (13). Varan the Unbelievable (1962); 11 (14). 1922 (2017); 12 (15). What Keeps You Alive (2018); 13 (16). On the Silver Globe (1988); 14 (17). The Phantom of the Opera (1998); 15 (18). Nina Forever (2015); 16 (19). Area 51 (2015); 17 (20). Carrie (2002); 18 (21). The Stylist (2016)/Stucco (2019)/He Took His Skin Off for Me (2014)/Zygote (2017); 19 (22). Mark of the Vampire (1935); 20 (23). Tigers Are Not Afraid (2017); 21 (23). Death Walks on High Heels (1971); 22 (24). Maniac (1980); - (25). The Beast with Five Fingers (1946); - (26). Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954); 23 (27). Summer Camp (2015); 24 (28). Man Made Monster (1941); 25 (29). Earth vs. the Spider (1958); 26 (30). Vampyr (1932); 27 (31). The Black Scorpion (1957); 28 (32). The Wild Boys (2017); 29 (33). City of the Living Dead (1980); 30 (34). We Are What We Are (2010); 31 (35). Mercy (2014); 32 (36). Baba Yaga: Terror of the Dark Forest (2020); 33 (37). Cell (2016); 34 (38). Sightseers (2012); 35 (39). Trucks (1997); 36 (40). Dead Hooker in a Trunk (2009); 37 (41). BloodRayne (2005); 38 (42). Big Driver (2014);

STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 15:44 on May 20, 2021

bitterandtwisted
Sep 4, 2006




19: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
:siren: FC4. Movie of the Month :siren:


Classic Robert Louis Stevenson tale of a scientist who believes he can separate the good and base aspects of the human psyche.
Hyde has a bigger spoken role than I expected. They take time to establish what a terrible person he is. He's in heavy makeup with big teeth, but he's very much an evil person not an animal unaware of what he's doing. Fredric March is very good as both Jekyll and Hyde.
When we're first introduced to the character of Ivy, I smiled as she revealed a bare knee, imagining monocles popping in the 1930s cinema, but that plot thread went so much darker than I expected. The film is more about human drama than monster shenanigans.
One thing that's missing is the supposed relationship between Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll's friends believing the terrible Hyde was blackmailing him into providing money and protection only for the truth to be so much worse really added a lot to the original story (and some adaptations like the 20s one).
Transformation scenes are good for the era and the sets and costumes are good. I found the pronunciation of Jekyll as "Jeekyl" a little distracting.
We're surely due another major adaptation of this. Most recent attempt to use these characters I can think of was the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and they deserve better.

Competed: 19
Four Flies on Grey Velevet; Gods and Monsters FC9; Alice, Sweet Alice, Witchfinder General; Street Trash; Cannibal Holocaust; C.H.U.D; Raw Force; In Search of Darkness 2; The Crazies (2010)FC2; Tigers are not Afraid FC5; Trilogy of Terror FC12; Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Tom Savin FC10; Goodnight Mommy FC7; various FC1; Friday 13th (2009) FC3; The Lure FC11; Resident Evil: the Final Chapter FC6; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) FC4

Tarnop
Nov 25, 2013

Pull me out

STAC Goat posted:

But then you’ve got an actual award winning thespian in the mix in Ben Kingsley and he seems almost pained as he tries to squeeze some respectability and nobility out of this job his agent probably got fired for booking for him.

I've got some bad news for you about the rest of Ben Kingsley's career

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Tarnop posted:

I've got some bad news for you about the rest of Ben Kingsley's career

It really is a very strange career. He bursts onto the scene in 1982 with Gandhi, and all the sudden he's a household name and an Oscar winner. But then somehow an entire decade goes by and he really doesn't do anything of note until Schindler's List, where he basically regains all of that cache he lost because Schindler's List was a huge movie. Then somehow just two years later he's in Species.

And I love Species, but like, who is making these career decisions? Who is the agent who is telling Kingsley in 1994 only a year after winning a BAFTA for Schindler's List, that it's a good idea to be in a movie like Species?

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Basebf555 posted:

It really is a very strange career. He bursts onto the scene in 1982 with Gandhi, and all the sudden he's a household name and an Oscar winner. But then somehow an entire decade goes by and he really doesn't do anything of note until Schindler's List, where he basically regains all of that cache he lost because Schindler's List was a huge movie. Then somehow just two years later he's in Species.

And I love Species, but like, who is making these career decisions? Who is the agent who is telling Kingsley in 1994 only a year after winning a BAFTA for Schindler's List, that it's a good idea to be in a movie like Species?

I'm pretty sure, just by the amount of names in the cast, that everyone involved thought that it was going to be the Alien of the 90's.

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Franchescanado posted:

I'm pretty sure, just by the amount of names in the cast, that everyone involved thought that it was going to be the Alien of the 90's.

The other names make more sense though, as far as the reasons why they would've decided at that point to be in the movie. Alfred Molina hadn't done a whole lot up to that point, this was years before he even did Boogie Nights, let alone Spiderman 2. Michael Madsen was a known character actor but really never got lead roles, it's not like he was an A-lister, and Forest Whittaker was similar to Molina in that most of the stuff he'd come to be known for came after Species.

So it totally make sense why they'd all be in the movie and I think you can argue all of their careers were boosted by Species because it was a pretty big hit. Kingsley is the only one who I'd say really didn't need it, and would've definitely had plenty of other offers due to Schindler's List. He was probably the highest paid in the cast though, so I assume that had something to do with it.

Class3KillStorm
Feb 17, 2011



Franchescanado posted:

3. Camp BLOOD

Watch a horror movie that takes place at a summer camp.


#19. Stage Fright (2014) (Hoopla)

A young girl's opera singer mother is killed on the opening night of "The Haunting of the Opera." 10 years later, at a summer camp for theater kids, her daughter joins their production of the same show... only for a new killer to start attacking all over again.

I had more fun with this than I had expected I would. The initial pitch - "Glee" meets "Scream" or something to that effect - was initially intriguing, but also a little worrying. I've known theater kids, and I expected a film that was designed to make it palatable, or even fun or desirable, to kill them off would do so by ratcheting up the worst stereotypes and by making them essentially non-personalities. There is some of that stereotyping in here, which is especially annoying that it is mostly applied to their sexuality - "all theater kids are gay" is like, the second lowest hanging fruit, behind only "all theater kids are weird and irritating."

Fortunately, there was a lot more work put into characters than I had been expecting, especially main character Camilla. Her desire to follow in her mother's footsteps into musical theater stardom is interesting and well explored, especially since the movie does not shy away from some of the darker aspects of that journey (like backstabbing alternates and directors using their stars' desires to take advantage of them, professionally and sexually). For long stretches you can forget that this is a horror movie at all, since all of those elements are largely relegated to the last third of the film. The cast is mostly good, and Meat Loaf should be in more horror movies, whether he gets to sing or not.

Once the whole "slasher villain attacking the show" aspect gets underway, the movie turns out to be an okay slasher film overall, but that's about it. Metal Ghost, the villain, is fun enough, but he's not really in the movie all that much, and his identity is pretty obvious well before the big unmasking is done at the end. He has one or two okay kills, but most of them are not super memorable or gory. By the time any of this starts happening, you've gotten to know most of the cast well enough, and outside of the one rear end in a top hat director you end up feeling bad about the others getting killed off. It's a fine line to walk, having a slasher film where characters are well-defined and likable but also getting the audience to enjoy the kill scenes. Stage Fright mostly succeeds at both, but by back-loading the slasher horror element it doesn't give it enough time to breathe or enough time to set up some really inventive moments that would help it stand out. It mostly seems to want to skate by on the strength of Metal Ghost as a character, but his 80s hair metal screech-quipping and guitar playing is only going to take you so far, even in his limited screen time.

On the whole I really enjoyed my time with this. I'm not enough of a musicals guy to tell you if the music is exceptionally good one way or the other, but I am enough of a horror guy to tell you that that aspect works well, once the movie finally gets around to it.

:ghost::ghost::ghost::ghost:/5

Watched so far: The Curse of the Cat People, Freaky, Vampires vs the Bronx, Rawhead Rex, Tarantula, In Search of Darkness, Ginger Snaps (rewatch), In Search of Darkness Part II (FC #10), Mother's Day (2010) (FC #7), Scream, Queen! (FC #9), House of Wax (1953) (FC #2), Vampire in Venice (FC #8), Possessor, Mandy, various shorts (FC #1), Saw (rewatch) (FC #6), Southbound (FC #12), Wendigo (FC #11), Stage Fright (2014) (FC #3)

twernt
Mar 11, 2003

Whoa whoa wait, time out.


32. 1991. The People Under the Stairs
Directed by Wes Craven
Available to rent on all the usual services

The People Under the Stairs is one of the most tonally baffling yet entertaining movies I’ve ever seen. It’s somehow a hybrid of Home Alone and maybe Silence of the Lambs? It’s an R-rated horror movie, so it’s definitely not for kids, but the lead is a child who consistently outwits the evil adults.

It’s not shy with its message about racist predatory capitalism. A wealthy white couple has bought up all of the property in “the ghetto” and they’re forcing all of the residents out so they can build higher-priced condominiums. They drop the n word like it’s not a big deal. There’s a picture of Reagan in their weird shrine room. They even own the neighborhood liquor store. It would make for a great double feature with Vampires vs. the Bronx.



Everett McGill and Wendy Robie are definitely over the top as Man and Woman. You can tell they had fun playing these cartoonish villains. Brandon Quintin Adams as Fool is that standout though. He carries most of the movie on his back and does a great job.



:ghost::ghost::ghost::ghost:


Time Travel Challenge: 32/31
1. Jigoku (1960), 2. The Curse of the Doll People (1961), 3. The Burning Court (1962), 4. X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), 5. The Long Hair of Death (1964), 6. Planet of the Vampires (1965), 7. Daimajin (1966), 8. Viy (1967), 9. A Quiet Place in the Country (1968), 10. The Cremator (1969), 11. Equinox (1970), 12. Lake of Dracula (1971), 13. The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972), 14. The Crazies (1973), 15. Deathdream aka Dead of Night (1974), 16. Race with the Devil (1975), 17. The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976), 18. The Incredible Melting Man (1977), 19. The Grapes of Death (1978), 20. Tourist Trap (1979), 21. The Changeling (1980), 22. My Bloody Valentine (1981), 23. Human Lanterns (1982), 24. Christine (1983), 25. Night of the Comet (1984), 26. Demons (1985), 27. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), 28. Wolf’s Hole (1987), 29. The Vanishing (1988), 30. Santa Sangre (1989), 31. Bride of Re-Animator (1990), 32. The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Bracketology: 10/?
1. Vampires vs. the Bronx, 2. The Roost, 3. Varan, 4. On the Silver Globe, 5. The Phantom of the Opera, 6. Mark of the Vampire, 7. Tigers Are Not Afraid, 8. Sightseers, 9. The House That Jack Built, 10. The Wild Boys

Fran Challenges: 13/13
1. Un Chien Andalou / The Big Shave / Kitchen Sink / Foxes / Portal to Hell!!!, 2. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 3. The Burning, 4. Dead Ringers, 5. Belzebuth, 6. Fright Night, 7. The Brood, 8. Village of the Damned, 9. Cat People, 10. Birth of the Living Dead, 11. The Lure, 12. Black Sabbath, 13. My Bloody Valentine 3D

Shaman Tank Spec
Dec 26, 2003

*blep*



Movie #13: The Others



“Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead.”

Somewhere on the Island of Jersey in 1945. A lone woman is living alone in a mansion beset by seemingly endless fog with her two children. As the two children suffer from a rare and extremely serious photosensitivity, the house must always be kept dark. Into this lonely dark house arrive three servants, here to replace the previous batch who mysteriously vanished one night without even saying good bye. And then strange things start happening.

For the first 3/4 of its runtime The Others is a fairly tense and atmospheric gothic horror film, where unseen entities slam doors, play the piano, have whispered conversations just out of hearing, and sometimes possess young girls. The woman, torn by grief for her husband who has been declared missing, presumed dead, struggles with the events seemingly surrounding her family. They are at odds with her very strict Christian beliefs, so she resorts to gaslighting the gently caress out of her poor children, much to the chagrin of the elderly servants.

And if that's all that had happened, The Others would be a solid 3/5. It's beautifully shot and looks just like a classic British gothic horror movie from the 60s or 70s with plenty of gorgeous noise and fog. But then we reach the ending. And I'm gonna spoiler that, because if you haven't seen The Others, go watch it.

Actually there are two revelations in the movie, both of which are pretty drat cool. The first one is that the three servants, who have been acting increasingly mysteriously, are dead. The woman discovers their "book of the dead", a photo album with pictures of their corpses in it, just as the little children discover their graves. Oh no, the servants were the ghosts all along, here to torment the woman and her children! Suddenly a lot of cryptic remarks from earlier in the movie take on new meaning, because now we know the servants are spirits trapped to return to the house again and again after their death from tuberculosis.

And then we get the second reveal in one of the coolest scenes I've seen in horror movies for a while. As the ghosts of the servants are trying to get into the house, the children are hiding in the attic. And suddenly the Intruders -- the otherwordly presence in the house -- finds them. The woman rushes up to the attic, hearing snippets of conversation between the Intruders and her children. She opens the door and reveals... a séance. The seemingly ghostly blind grandma the kids have been terrified by is a medium and is trying to communicate with the spirits trapped in the house. The spirits, of course, being the woman and her children. Turns out she'd gone mad in her grief and killed her kids, and then herself, trapping them all in the house possibly permanently.

It's an extremely cool scene not because it's some huge plot twist, but because it's like we've been watching the reverse side of a horror movie up until then. Just as we cut to the real world, the parents of the living family are having an argument about not being able to stay in the house one night longer. "Think about our son", the mother pleads. "There's nothing wrong with out son, Victor's fine", retorts the father. "No he isn't! He's been having nightmares and seeing that little girl". You know, the scene we've all seen a billion times before in a billion horror movies (yes, even I, the horror newbie). And all the while the medium is transcribing conversations we're hearing between the woman and her children to her assistant to read to the human family. I don't want to call it a twist, because it honestly feels more like context.

I went back to watch some earlier scenes after the big reveal, and the movie works extremely well even from this perspective. Like in the scene in the junk room, where the woman is hearing snippets of conversations. Initially we thought she was hearing ghosts who were saying some very strange things indeed, but of course she's actually hearing the living people reacting to her presence. If you listen closely (or turn on closed captioning, I suppose, but I'm not a coward) you can hear someone saying "describe her" and someone else responding with "I think it's a woman". So cool!

I'll be honest, I kind of figured out the second reveal when the woman's husband unexpectedly turns up at the house after being missing for years. "Where have you been", she asks. "I've been lost, looking for my home. Sometimes I bleed", the man responds. So yeah, he's obviously a ghost who has finally found its way back home after dying in the war. But since the woman and the children can interact with him as well, they're probably ghosts too. That didn't ruin the movie in any way, because it's extremely atmospheric and clever.


Very much recommended for fans of gothic horror, as well as fans of horror movies that aren't afraid of getting a bit meta.

:ghost::ghost::ghost::ghost: / 5

My earlier movies:
1. Evil Dead II, 2. The Legend of Hell House, 3. Hausu, 4. The Haunting, 5. The Innkeepers, 6. Sleepaway Camp, 7. It Follows, 8. Tremors, 9. From Beyond, 10. Friday the 13th Part II, 11. Under the Shadow, 12. Halloween Part II

Shaman Tank Spec fucked around with this message at 19:40 on May 20, 2021

gey muckle mowser
Aug 5, 2003

Do you know anything about...
witches?



Buglord


23. Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
dir. Darren Lynn Bousman
theater (!)

Chris Rock plays an honest cop who is disliked by the rest of his precinct for turning in a corrupt officer years ago. He is assigned to investigate a series of murders that appear to be committed by a Jigsaw copycat, but soon finds that there may be a personal element to them. Like much of the Saw series, this is a solidly OK film that's bogged down by an overly complicated plot. At least here the twists don't require ret-conning stuff that happened in previous films, but they still grind the film to a halt while the characters deliver lots of convoluted exposition.

I did enjoy it for what it was though. Rock isn't a stellar dramatic actor but he's likable, and Samuel L. Jackson is always fun even if his character doesn't get a ton of scenes. The trap/kill scenes are ridiculous and even more unfair than in many of the previous films (let's play a game, and all you need to do to survive is SEVER YOUR loving SPINAL CORD!), and there aren't a ton of them, but they're still appropriately hosed up and gross.

I feel like this could've been improved by leaning into the topical subject matter a bit more - it's about corrupt cops murdering innocent people and our lead character is black, but the subject of racism is never directly breached and most/all of the cops' victims are white. Then again I'm not sure that a Saw film could handle this material well, so maybe it's for the best. A smarter script could've gone a long way though.

If you like the Saw series, you'll probably like this too. It's not a great film by any stretch but it's fun enough to be worth a watch for fans of the franchise.

3 plot twists out of 5



24. The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire (1971)
dir. Riccardo Freda
blu-ray

An Italian giallo set in Ireland. When the corpse of a murdered woman is found in the trunk of a car owned by the Swiss ambassador, everyone in his household becomes a suspect - and of course the murders continue. Because the ambassador’s diplomatic immunity complicates the investigation, the local police bring on a former detective who is willing to bend the rules to solve the crimes.

This is kind of incoherent. The plot is complicated and hard to follow, which is pretty standard for a giallo and not necessarily a dealbreaker for me, but it’s also just not interesting enough to even try to decipher. A lot of the characters kind of run together and their motivations aren’t very clear. The kills are a lot more graphic than I expected, but there aren’t all that many of them.

It looks pretty nice though - lots of shots of Irish towns and cliffs and such. The acting is also above average for a film like this, but the relatively high production values don’t really make up for the fact that it’s just not a very good or interesting mystery. Far from the worst giallo I’ve seen, but if it weren’t for the Irish setting it would probably be entirely forgettable. The title is by far the best part.

2.5 sunglasses out of 5



:siren:Fran Challenge #3. Camp BLOOD:siren:
25. Madman (1981)
dir. Joe Giannone
YouTube

Kids at a summer camp are told the story of "Madman Marz", a local man who went crazy and killed his family. Legend has it that he still prowls the woods, waiting for someone to say his name... of course, the camp counselors begin dying one by one in horrible ways.

This is just about as simple and straightforward of a summer camp slasher movie as you can get. There isn't a whole lot of plot and what's there mostly just serves to get the characters in situations where they can be picked off by the killer. The special effects are good and there are some tense and creepy scenes. The madman himself looks kind of lame when you get a good look at him, but there are some creepy shots where he is silhouette that I really liked. I don't think there is anything exceptional here but it's a pretty solid slasher film all around.

If you like '80s camp slashers, I think you'll like this one. It's not the best at any one thing, but it works overall and I enjoyed it.

3.5 axes out of 5

Edgar Wright's Top 100 Horror: 98/100
Slant Top 100 Horror: 98/100
TSZDT 2020: 675/1000

Total: 25
Watched: White Zombie | M | Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter | The Demoniacs | The Addiction | The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) | The Queen of Black Magic (2019) (FC#2) | Warlock | Prince of Darkness | A Record of Sweet Murder | The Neon Demon | The Day of the Beast (FC#13) | The Devil Rides Out | The Taking of Deborah Logan (FC#7) | Short films (FC#1) | Don't Panic (FC#5) | The Hitcher | Resident Evil: Retribution (FC#6) | Saint Maud | Stranger by the Lake (FC#9) | Frenzy | Spirits of the Dead (FC#12) | Spiral: From the Book of Saw | The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire | Madman (FC#)
Fran Challenges: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

STAC Goat
Mar 12, 2008

Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.

The Others is great, and underappreciated. I should rewatch it.

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

22. Psycho (1960) Fran Challenge 7. Mother's Day



A just stone cold masterpiece of cinema and horror. Anthony Perkins is wonderful as Norman Bates. Anyway I picked this for my mother's day challenge because I hadn't seen it in so long that I was watching it with new eyes. What a movie , from Hitchcock's expert directing , to all of the acting in the film. To the incredible climax of the film. This is really one of those perfect films that on each rewatch gets better and better. Anyway I may end up watching Psycho 2 because of it.

The Berzerker
Feb 24, 2006

treat me like a dog



30. The Lure (Agnieszka Smoczyńska, 2015)
:spooky: Fran Challenge 11: Myths & Legends :spooky:
This is so much fun! A stylish and inventive horror movie that is also a musical and a romance story about two mermaids who try to blend in as people by becoming star singers in a lounge, and if that sounds like a lot, the reality is it all feels totally natural and is really well executed. It looks great, the performances are strong, the soundtrack absolutely slaps, and it still manages to incorporate most of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. I particularly love the song when they first perform as The Lure, they look like they belong in Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.

:ghost: 4/5


31. Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)
An eerie, atmospheric ghost story where ghosts are maybe re-entering the world through the internet, and yes this is a gross oversimplification. If you're like me, it will give you a lot of depressing thoughts about how while the internet helps people 'stay connected' it also isn't really the same type of connection we were used to, and in a large city (like Tokyo where this takes place, or like where I live) it really hammers home the weird isolation and loneliness you can feel. But it's also a great ghost story with spooky ghosts and shadows and all that stuff too. It goes pretty bananas in the last twenty minutes and I'll probably need to watch it again, but I think I'll wait a while, as this hit a little harder after 14 months of rarely leaving my apartment due to a global pandemic.

:ghost: 4.5/5

Challenge Count: 31/31
Fran Challenges: 1 (Various) 2 (Suspiria 2018) 3 (Cheerleader Camp) 4 5 (Tigers Are Not Afraid) 6 (Resident Evil: The Final Chapter) 7 (Goodnight Mommy) 8 (The Clown at Midnight) 9 (The Wild Boys) 10 (Video Nasties) 11 (The Lure) 12 (Tales of Halloween) 13 (April Fool's Day)
TSZDT Challenge: 100/100
Indiewire Challenge: 48/50 (Remaining: Hangover Square, I Saw the Devil)

Spatulater bro!
Aug 19, 2003

Punch! Punch! Punch!

Since you liked Pulse, be sure to watch Cure. See my review above. Seriously incredible.

Debbie Does Dagon
Jul 8, 2005



8. Harvest Lake - Tubi(US)



Harvest Lake has a very simple premise, a group of horny friends venture out to Harvest Lake, and once there they discover that an unidentified presence is dispatching them one by one. It seems like pretty standard slasher fare, right? When I began watching the film I quickly dismissed it as a skinamax slog with nothing to offer, but then an interesting shot crept in, followed by a compelling tense moment, and then engaging dialogue, likeable characters, and goop, so much delicious horny goop I could barely contain myself. To say this was a pleasant surprise is a vast understatement, and I'm going to gleefully track down the rest of the director's (Scott Schirmer) films.



The characters and the tone are really what keeps the film moving along nicely. When you look into the actors' filmographies they're the predictable schlocky super low-budget horror titles, with names like Hooker With a Hacksaw, Bloody Hooker Bang Bang: A Love Story, and Space Babes from Outer Space. I don't know if these actors are unsung masters of their indie craft, or the director is just an expert at pulling emotion and charisma out of people, but the performances here are rich, naturalistic, compelling, and most importantly warm. I cared about all of these people, and felt like I got to know them at a deep emotional level as they strutted around in bikinis and short-shorts, and sucked fungus dicks.



Speaking of fungus dicks, it's hard to really pin down what the message of the film is, if there is one. The entire film is very sex-positive, body-positive, and warmly embracing of queer people in a non-judgmental, celebratory way. There is eye-candy, but it's joyously equal opportunity, as we get dicks before the opening titles, and a loving shot of boys kissing each other. Yet, there is this constant theme of sex as something menacing. This is probably going too far, but it reminded me of a cross between Cronenberg's Shivers and von Trier's Antichrist, but not at all clinical or misanthropic. There's just this not-so-subtle sense that sex is invasive, and that nature is brutal, rapacious and unquenchable, but then there's also an impression that maybe that's okay. Maybe being a cum slut zombie for an eldritch entity is a valid and fulfilling life choice.



I'm really not expecting anyone else to appreciate this movie, but for me it was an absolute blast.

4.5/5

Official: 8/13
X-Files: 23/x
Fran Challenges: 1/13

gey muckle mowser
Aug 5, 2003

Do you know anything about...
witches?



Buglord

Debbie Does Dagon posted:

so much delicious horny goop I could barely contain myself

new thread title please

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

The City of the Dead (1960)


Nan Barlow, a university student travels to a isolated New England village to research witchcraft under suggestion from her history professor Alan Driscoll. She expects a sleepy little hamlet but finds THE CITY OF THE DEAD.

Possibly the foggiest movie ever made rivaled only by The Fog and possible The Mist.

It's a fairly simple story. Of course Alan Driscoll the character played by Cristopher Lee turns out to be not only in on the witchcraft but seemingly one of the top Satanists. Do I even need to spoiler this part? I mean why would they even have Cristopher Lee in the film if he was only playing a professor? It would've been an amazing twist if Professor Driscoll had turned out to be just a passionate historian or even if he would've shown up to save the day. What we got was still goof if predictable. . The one thing that did surprise me is that Nan is actually killed halfway through the film via a brilliant match cut with a sacrifical dagger coming towards her and then it cuts to a cake being cut at her cousin's birthday party. It felt a bit like Psycho before Psycho. Have us follow the main heroine for a while and then have her suddenly die and have the rest of the film revolve around solving her murder. Her boyfriend "Dick" and her brother, both of whom are Serious Men of Science who don't believe in all of this witchcraft poppycock are sadly a bit dull but they carry the plot forward decently enough. The actual ending of the film has them dispatch the witches by holding a cross near them which causes them to immediately catch fire from the holy shadow of the cross falling upon them. Strangely the cross in question is found in the same cemetery the witches have been walking back and forth through apparently for 300 years without burning up. As silly as this is it was also fun as hell and I wouldn't be surprised if the classic 90s Build Shooter BLOOD took inspiration from this scene as a large chunk of that game revolves around setting fire to robed Satanic cultists and watching them write around in screaming agony. Albeit using flareguns and napalm instead of a cross.

Other than the countless foggy shots of ominous robed figures in derelict graveyards the highpoint of the film might actually be the opening scene in which we witness a witch burning. Some of the locals have really interesting faces and watching them jeer and sneer as they demand the witch be burned was a great time.

A Somewhat boilerplate Witch/Satanist film plot wise but it more than makes up for it by oozing foggy spookiness out of every necrotic pore.


oh and also the "Superstition, Fear, and Jealousy" sample from Dragula is taken from this film.




Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

7) Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway (2019)
Fran Challenge: Myths and Legends


But not your typical myth, no. The myth in this movie is the Rastafari deification of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. Now, some among you might say that is not enough to qualify. But I say: the movie also contains a scene where Batman sends three kung fu masters to recover the Ark of the Covenant, and if that is not mythological enough for you then gently caress all y'all.

In a future Tallinn, now one of the world's largest cities, a combination video game and VR social network called Psychobook controls everything. But nefarious elements have infected it with a sentient virus called Soviet Union which takes the form of an Irish Joseph Stalin and defeats all who come to stop it in mortal combat. CIA agent DT Gagano is called up for one last job to fight the virus before he retires to open a kickboxing academy with his wife. Exposure to a drug called Substance leaves Gagano brain dead in the real world, but his consciousness survives within Psychobook and the Substance transports him to Betta Ethiopia, where rebels against a corrupt President believe him to be the true Emperor and new Messiah.

So: I don't know what the hell I just watched, but I certainly know that I watched it. This film is unique - not always in a good way, but still. It's probably the only Kickstarter-funded Estonian/Ethiopian horror movie, it's almost certainly the only movie with a stop motion fight scene between two real actors, and it's definitely the only movie whose opening credits are loaded from cassette. It's a weird psychedelic mishmash of Cronenberg and Philip K Dick with some truly awful acting but also some brilliant conceits. If I had to compare it to anything it would be Southland Tales without the budget. Do I recommend it? Not as such. But I wouldn't blame anyone for watching it, and I intend to watch the director's first movie this month as well.

twernt
Mar 11, 2003

Whoa whoa wait, time out.


33. 1992. The Wicked City
Directed by Peter Mak Tai-Kit
Watched on YouTube

The Wicked City is a Hong Kong action movie infused with supernatural body horror elements. In Hong Kong, a special secret police force protects humans from shape-shifting demons called Rapters. What they don’t know is that there is a sort of civil war brewing within Rapter society, between those who want to live among humans in peace and those who want to exploit and subjugate them.



It’s a Tsui Hark production (and there are persistent rumors he actually directed a number of scenes) so The Wicked City is full of incomprehensibly dramatic action. Some of the special effects are dodgy but the blood and guts get pretty creative — heads exploding, heads falling off, heads getting chopped in two. It’s also full of the kind of melodrama you expect from 90s Hong Kong Cinema.



The Wicked City is maybe about a half hour too long, which is ridiculous because the runtime is only 87 minutes. On the other hand, the main bad guy turns into some kind of octopus reptile man at the end. At this point, you either want to see Hong Kong cops shout at each other as they tangle with bizarre creatures from another dimension or you don’t. I’m not the boss of you.



:ghost::ghost::ghost:


Time Travel Challenge: 33/31
1. Jigoku (1960), 2. The Curse of the Doll People (1961), 3. The Burning Court (1962), 4. X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), 5. The Long Hair of Death (1964), 6. Planet of the Vampires (1965), 7. Daimajin (1966), 8. Viy (1967), 9. A Quiet Place in the Country (1968), 10. The Cremator (1969), 11. Equinox (1970), 12. Lake of Dracula (1971), 13. The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972), 14. The Crazies (1973), 15. Deathdream aka Dead of Night (1974), 16. Race with the Devil (1975), 17. The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976), 18. The Incredible Melting Man (1977), 19. The Grapes of Death (1978), 20. Tourist Trap (1979), 21. The Changeling (1980), 22. My Bloody Valentine (1981), 23. Human Lanterns (1982), 24. Christine (1983), 25. Night of the Comet (1984), 26. Demons (1985), 27. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), 28. Wolf’s Hole (1987), 29. The Vanishing (1988), 30. Santa Sangre (1989), 31. Bride of Re-Animator (1990), 32. The People Under the Stairs (1991), 33. The Wicked City (1992)

Bracketology: 10/?
1. Vampires vs. the Bronx, 2. The Roost, 3. Varan, 4. On the Silver Globe, 5. The Phantom of the Opera, 6. Mark of the Vampire, 7. Tigers Are Not Afraid, 8. Sightseers, 9. The House That Jack Built, 10. The Wild Boys

Fran Challenges: 13/13
1. Un Chien Andalou / The Big Shave / Kitchen Sink / Foxes / Portal to Hell!!!, 2. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 3. The Burning, 4. Dead Ringers, 5. Belzebuth, 6. Fright Night, 7. The Brood, 8. Village of the Damned, 9. Cat People, 10. Birth of the Living Dead, 11. The Lure, 12. Black Sabbath, 13. My Bloody Valentine 3D

Five Eyes
Oct 26, 2017
Fran Challenge 4.) Movie of the Month
Vampyr (Watched on Youtube)


This has been on the list for a long time, but scheduling has never really worked out.

There's a wonderful playfulness to the cinematography here, including inventive little bits which remind me of some early short effects features (Melies, etc.) Gray's a credibly haunted, awkward, and sensitive protagonist to wander through this spooky little landscape - his nervous disposition justifies several slow, lingering shots and curious angles. It ends up looking great, composed of a series of memorable images and sequences which show how mature the medium was by the early 30s.

A strong recommendation if you haven't checked it out already.

Whole families, even entire villages, are thus brought under the curse.

Watched: 1.) Various Shorts [FC1: Short Cuts] 2.) Pet Sematary (2019) [FC2: Sometimes they Come Back], 3.) Madman [FC3: Camp BLOOD], 4.) Vampyr [FC4: Movie of the Month]

Debbie Does Dagon posted:

8. Harvest Lake - Tubi(US)
A delightful new industry standard in the field of fungus dicks. I watched Harvest Lake as part of 31-for-October, and when my partner came home from work and asked "So what was today's movie about?" there was really just no appropriate response.

WeaponX
Jul 28, 2008



9. Bride of Chucky


This film, and much of this series, is a bit of comfort food for me. Checks a lot of my boxes. For starters it’s a horror comedy with plenty of silliness and gore. Secondly it’s that nostalgic era for me- late 90s/early 00s. And boy is it ever of that era...opens with a Rob Zombie song and features John Ritter, Katherine Heigl, and Alexis Arquette.

The director Ronny Yu of Freddy vs. Jason fame has a very interesting career, I’d be interested in checking out his earlier Hong Kong stuff- does anyone have any experience with him?


This one is known for being the one to go “meta”. It references a ton of horror films and, I think, lovingly mocks the genre. The meta aspect isn’t overbearing or pandering like many “horror films for horror fans”. And overall most of this one is just plain silly. It’s crude and dumb and funny. It doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. I love our hapless protagonists who can’t do anything right and are constantly being bailed-out or manipulated by Chucky and Tiffany. And of course, the puppets gently caress.

Dourif was getting a lot of well-deserved love in the other thread but let’s give it up for Jennifer Tilly who is so good in these films. Their relationship in these later Chucky films is genuinely interesting- they are evil and abusive, doomed to bring out the worst in each other but they are undeniably fated to be together. It’s almost, dare I say, sweet.


”You know me. I’ll kill anybody, but I’ll only sleep with someone I love.”


Watchlist ranked Best to Worst
1. Bride of Re-Animator* 2. Ginger Snaps 3. Frankenhooker* 4. Bride of Chucky* 5. House on Haunted Hill ‘99 (:spooky:) 6. Rawhead Rex
7. Victor Crowley 8. Scare Package (:spooky:)
9. Jason Goes to Hell

*=rewatch
:spooky: = Fran Challenge

The Berzerker
Feb 24, 2006

treat me like a dog


Spatulater bro! posted:

Since you liked Pulse, be sure to watch Cure. See my review above. Seriously incredible.

It's on the list!

Debbie Does Dagon
Jul 8, 2005



Five Eyes posted:

A delightful new industry standard in the field of fungus dicks. I watched Harvest Lake as part of 31-for-October, and when my partner came home from work and asked "So what was today's movie about?" there was really just no appropriate response.

Debbie Does Dagon posted:

so much delicious horny goop I could barely contain myself

I'm delighted there's another fan :3: It's one of those films I'm persuading myself that everyone should watch

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gey muckle mowser
Aug 5, 2003

Do you know anything about...
witches?



Buglord
I’m definitely gonna check that one out. Scott Schirmer also directed Found which I remember liking a lot, I believe it was recently added to Shudder.

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